The Education of Hailey Kendrick by Eileen Cook

Title: The Education of Hailey Kendrick

Author: Eileen Cook

Publisher: Simon Pulse

Release Date: January 4, 2011

Date Read: March 21 - 25, 2011

Rating: 3/5 stars

Goodreads

Summary

Hailey Kendrick always does exactly what's expected of her. She has the right friends, dates the perfect boy, gets good grades, and follows all the rules. But one night, Hailey risks everything by breaking a very big rule in a very public way...and with a very unexpected partner in crime. Hailey gets caught, but her accomplice does not, and Hailey takes the fall for both of them.

Suddenly, Hailey's perfect life--and her reputation--are blowing up in her face. Her friends are all avoiding her. Her teachers don't trust her. Her boyfriend won't even speak to her for long enough to tell her that she's been dumped.

They say honesty is the best policy--but some secrets are worth keeping, no matter the cost. Or are they?

Review

Another boarding school novel?! (As I type this review I'm reading Haven as well) Seeing as I'd just finished The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks a few weeks ago I noticed too many similarities between the novels: good girl at a boarding school does some illegal stuff. In this novel however, there was a lot less at stake and it was far less literary. 

I'm really starting to dislike shallow female protagonists. While Hailey was an independent, mature teen, I found a lot of her choices and reactions to be very juvenile. So wrapped up in never making a mistake and having OCD about safety and healthy, she's never had to deal with rejection or disappointment before and thus never learned how to cope with anger. The fact that she thought destroying a statue would solve everything just made me sigh. I understood why Hailey took the blame and stood up for Joel but after she was threatened with disciplinary action and she'd obviously lost her boyfriend, I didn't understand why she didn't just turn Joel in. 

I found Hailey's situation to be very realistic from an education-family-friends standpoint, but found it totally unrealistic that she'd have three guys pining for her over the course of the book. I didn't really understand why Drew was a love interest? Why couldn't he just have been the guy in charge of her detention? That being said, I really liked how Eileen didn't have Hailey and Joel end up together at the end. Very classy. 

Favourite Quote: "I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life,...to put to rout all that was not life...and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." (A quote featured in the novel, but it's better than a lot of the dialogue)

Recommended: The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks (E. Lockhart), Youth in Revolt (C.D. Payne), Looking for Alaska (John Green), Breathless (Jessica Warman)